What else can I do?

What else can I do? A question for teachers, counselors and psychologists?
Most of you know that I am an in-home daycare/preschool provider. One floor of our home is my ‘one-room-school-house’. I have taught children in a classroom forum at an older age and I have to admit that this young, small group is much more humbling and demanding.

Each child and each problem is a new experience and I will do anything in my power to give MY KIDS a good start in life.

The child I am concerned about is 4 years old and I would consider him very slow. I can see a language deficiency ... he often looks at me like he doesn’t have a clue what I am talking about.

When he first came to me he was already two years old: he could not speak and only ate yogurt.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to start educating my babies from 3 months on! Because this child had/has not been exposed to the proper challenges in his life. It didn’t take me long to make some changes — he was speaking, self-feeding and potty-trained in about 6 months.

What bothers me though ... the mother doesn’t seem to think anything is out of the ordinary.
I read a lot of books to the kids ... and discuss them with 2, 3 and 4 year olds. Different types of books to entice them into THINKING!

When I ask this boy, "Is it safe for a puppy to be on the street?" , the boy will promptly say, "Yes"

I rethink and reword my question, "Should puppies be playing on the street, where there are cars?" He answered, "Yes" again! This time I had added the word CARS, to give him more of a reason to say, "NO"

We have also started the concept ‘same and different’ an important concept for this age. I had a picture of 4 umbrellas covered with a star-design, the 5^th umbrella was blank.
I ask him which umbrella is different. His answer, "Two"

I reword my question and ask, "Are these umbrellas all the same?" His answer, "Yes"

We try different concepts ... Including sheep, four white, one black. I ask him to look at them closely. Do they all look like grandma’s sheep? (Hers are all white)

He tells me they are just like Grandma’s. I say, "All of them?"

"Yep" is the answer.

I make this problem solving a bit easier. Four big blocks ... One small one. (No luck}

Finally I show him 4 spoons and one fork ... he tells me they are the same.

One of my TWO-year-olds interrupts and yells, "No, that is a fork, those are spoons."

We have the same problem with: placement of items, taller and shorter, bigger and smaller, etc.

I don’t think this child has the proper grasp on language and the sad part is, he doesn’t get a lot of exposure (f.e. never been to the zoo) and I know they don’t take time to read to him.

He owns a DSI and plays games on that thing, but I have never watched him play, so I don’t know how well he does with this.

It took a lot of patience, but he can put his own shoes on and is doing 24-puzzle pieces at my house. (At home he can’t put his shoes on .. They tell me)

I would like to see him get tested ... a language evaluation might show us how to work with him more efficiently. The problem is, his mother tells me he is fine ... he is just ‘pretending’ he doesn’t know the answers to my questions. I don’t think this is true, because he would LOVE to get a sticker! And I know how he glows when I tell him that I am proud of him.

Sometimes he even asks me, "Are you happy with me?"

I am happy with ANY child, that will try to do the task I put in front of him/her!

So ... any idea how I can help this child?